Journey through Asia: Nong khiaw - beautiful excluded northern of Laos

There are places that you visit that make a big impression on you. Sometimes it's about the history, the people, the food. In Nong Kiauw I cannot explain why I fell in love with this little village in the north of Laos so much. Maybe because of its beautiful setting surrounded by mountains right at the river, it's silence and the lack of tourists or maybe it was just because of the best Indian food I have ever tasted.

We were stranded in Nong Kiauw for one week as our visa for Vietnam started a week later and there were no regular boats going out of the village in low season. When we first decided to leave, there was no boat going towards the border of Vietnam so we stayed 3 extras days waiting for a boat and I'm happy we did!

We spend out days with hiking the mountains, walking along the river, drinking beer at the river bank, watching the sunset from our beautiful guesthouse (staying with "mama" who couldn't speak a word of English except "me mama no English". The highlight of our days was usually our dinner at "deens" - the best Indian restaurant I have ever been to. Every vegetable curry was just 10.000 kip (1 euro) and meat curry 20.000kip (2 euro). Within this week we tried almost the whole menu (and we still miss this food now - 2 months later). It was just too funny, how we were stranded in this small village with nothing going on but with this delicious Indian restaurant!

One day we decided to join a local tour which included kayaking, hiking and a waterfall. First we visited a remote village who was just accessible via boat (no road, no electricity...). I have seen a lot of these villages before in Laos and it is still shocking how many still exists. But it is also great to see that most of the people who live here are happy. The most shocking part of this trip was to see the school. Nobody was at their place, everybody was running around doing something and the teachers didn't care. One teacher came to our guide and asked to write the schools name in English for a school sign they want to place near the river. But he couldn't write so he asked me to write it in English (i still hope it turned out all right haha).
After we went to a beautiful waterfall, had lunch and kayaked back to nong kiau through dangerous streams (but it was fun because I could share the kayak with the guide as Tom went with our Canadian friend who was apparently very good with his hips!)